Joel J. Lorenzatti's talk "Functional Ascriptions in Evolutionary Psychology"

On Monday December 7th at 16:15 in room 322 visiting PhD student Joel J. Lorenzatti will give a talk titled "Functional Ascriptions in Evolutionary Psychology"

Abstract:
According to evolutionary psychologists, the mind is a system of modules of information processing designed by natural selection to solve the problems our ancestors faced in their way of life as hunters and gatherers. Human behavior itself is not the direct result of natural selection but the upshot of several cognitive modules, each one dedicated to fulfill a specific function. Now, when evolutionary psychologists talk about modules as adaptations having a function, what kind of function are they referring to? At first sight, it seems more plausible that they have in mind the evolutionary notion of function as in evolutionary biology; however, sometimes they employ the notion of function to describe the actual performance of a module as if they were using the notion as biologists do in functional biology. In this work I would try to (1) elucidate the different notions of function used in biology, (2) reconstruct the evolutionary psychologists approach regarding functional talk, (3) explore the extent to which biological notions of function can be successfully applied to evolutionary psychology.